Sergey Belanovsky, political analyst
About 15 years ago, a woman came to me from television for an interview about new types of families. Apparently, they meant polyamorous, sodomous, homosexual and other "families" (cohabitation). I replied to the camera that there are such cohabitations, but I see the main trend not in them, but in atomization. Under the influence of urbanization, the community first disintegrated, then the “big” family, now the “small” or nuclear family is disintegrating. As a result, we will all disperse to separate apartments and will live like this. Of course, a certain number of classic families will remain, but the coverage of the population with this form of cohabitation will decline. The population, as the UN forecasts say, after passing through a certain peak, will begin to decline.
Years passed, and some addition became obvious, namely the growth of sales of sex dolls that can brighten up and, so to speak, legitimize life alone. Moreover, sales of not only female, but also male dolls are growing (you can watch advertisements on the Internet).
I read on the blog of a young man who was in Japan about his experience with a sex doll. Here is how it was. He walked into a sex shop and saw a nude life-size female sex doll. For the sake of interest, he came up, hugged her, and ... for a second forgot that he was hugging not a real woman. Skin, tactile sensations, smell, hair - everything was as natural. There used to be complaints that sex dolls smell like rubber. Now this deficiency has been eliminated, and progress continues. Indeed, why have problems with a living person if you can do without him?
There are probably three main evolutionary causes of human collectivism: production (including hunting), war, and sex. Maybe something else, I'm not discussing. I don’t know about the war, production is becoming more individualistic. So sex, perhaps, becomes more individualistic, both in the physical and psychological sense of the word (the "unity of souls" disappears).
In relationships between people, there are always forces of attraction and repulsion. The role of attraction as a means of collective survival is declining. The role of repulsion is correspondingly growing.
Is this trend linked to legal issues? I think yes. The erosion of the legal concept of marriage and, in the long term, its replacement by a civil law contract will strengthen the tendency for the family to break up and, possibly, bring it to its logical end.
I think that gender equality also leads in the same direction.
But I don't see a disaster in this. The accumulated population of the Earth is so great that even a sharp decline in nuptiality and fertility will not lead to the disappearance of the human population for another hundred years. And we'll see.
Original is here.